Class: Music Number of Students: 16 (Group 1) /14 (Group 2) Year: 4 (8-year gymnasium) Number of Lessons: 2 (45 minutes per lesson)
Outline
While at Gymnasium Zlin, we had the chance to design a music rich task centred around Christmas carols. We were fortunate enough to be given time with two groups of students and so we felt this was an excellent opportunity to try out the same task with different classes and see how it was received by each of them. We had two lessons with each group of students and their task was to write new lyrics in English for a Christmas carol of their choice then perform it as a class.
LessonOne
We started the first lesson with a short talk about Christmas in Scotland, as the students had expressed an interest in hearing about traditions in our home country - we asked them to fill out small forms prior to the lesson to gather information about how they like to learn, what they would like to do in the lessons, their favourite Christmas carols etc to help us tailor the lessons for the students taking part. We then asked the students to tell us a little about Christmas celebrations in the Czech Republic and we showed a slideshow of typical Christmas images and had Christmas music playing in the background throughout the discussion.
After that we explained the task to the class and gave them a handout, then introduced them to three popular English Christmas carols of contrasting styles. The first was the old carol ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’, the second a newer carol ‘Walking In A Winter Wonderland’ and the third was the modern Christmas song ‘Merry Xmas (War Is Over)’ by John Lennon. We played the beginning of each carol a few times in order for the students to familiarise themselves with the tune, then everybody sang them together. They were asked to vote as a class on their favourite of the three and were told that this would be the carol for which they would write new lyrics. Group 1 chose ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and Group 2 chose ‘Merry Xmas (War Is Over)’.
To end the lesson, we asked the students to think of words they associate with Christmas and drew up a word cloud containing all of their ideas. We made this into a handout to distribute in the second lesson to help them when writing their new lyrics.
Lesson Two The students were reminded what their chosen carol was and were allowed to listen to it a few more times to make sure they knew the melody. They were given the word cloud from the previous lesson and also the sheet music for their carol. We split them into small groups so that each group could focus on a verse each. The students were told how much time they had for this part of the lesson, during which we walked around making sure everyone knew what they were being asked to do.
Once the new words were ready, we wrote them up on whiteboards at the front of the classroom and allowed the students to practise the music for the carol. The final part of the lesson involved the entire class gathering round to perform their new version of the carol.
As usual we got the students to fill out an evaluation sheet after the lessons.
Links to Personalised Learning
The lessons were personalised in the respect that the students could choose which song they wanted to write new lyrics for and they were also free to say anything they wanted in their composition. This links to the ‘Curriculum Entitlement and Choice’ component of Personalised Learning. Another successful element of the lessons was the fact that they were interdisciplinary - the students were carrying out musical tasks while developing their English skills. One student actually said this aspect of the rich task was their favourite, stating that what they liked most about the lessons was the “connection between English and music”.
Since we also employed a variety of teaching methods throughout the lessons and asked students to fill out forms before the lessons to help us plan the task around their preferences, this rich task links to the ‘Teaching and Learning Strategies’ component as well.
Finally, the students were given an opportunity to practise their English during the lessons and to expand their vocabulary. These skills are useful in everyday life and hence the ‘Strong Partnerships Beyond the Classroom’ component is also present.
Feedback
Group 1
The students from Group 1 rated the lessons between 4/10 and 10/10 with the average working out at 8.3/10.
Some of the things students liked about the lessons were being allowed to say which song they thought was the best and then singing it, that it was an interesting task and also the connection between English and music.
The students also gave feedback on some of the things they didn’t like which included not having enough time for the task and that in the first lesson there was too much talking.
Things that they thought would have improved the lessons were having more varied activities in the first lesson, learning more songs and also better communication.
Group 2
The students from Group 2 rated the lessons between 3/10 and 10/10 with an average score of 8.2/10.
Aspects of the lessons which students enjoyed were talking about Christmas and learning about Christmas in other countries, learning Christmas vocabulary, composing the song then singing it and also the group work element.
Things the students disliked about the lessons were that they had too little time and that they felt there was too much emphasis on talking about their Christmas traditions and not enough singing.
Some students wrote that to improve the lessons their level of English and their communication could have been better.
One of the things which students from both groups wrote down as a negative aspect of the lessons was that the first had too much talking and its activities weren’t varied enough. We designed the lessons trying to take into account the interests and learning styles of all the students in the groups but obviously everyone is different and so while the talking/discussion element of the task worked for some students, it did not suit others. This highlights the difficulty in trying to personalise lessons for each individual student while still having them all working on the same material. However, when taking all of the feedback into consideration, I think that the lessons were a success. The students in both groups were highly motivated and put a lot of effort into the task. To produce a brand new set of lyrics in another language and in a very limited time frame was a great achievement and both ourselves and the teacher were pleased with the end results.
Thank you to Pavla Kovaříková for all her help and to all the students for taking part!
Case Study
Class: Music
Number of Students: 16 (Group 1) /14 (Group 2)
Year: 4 (8-year gymnasium)
Number of Lessons: 2 (45 minutes per lesson)
Outline
While at Gymnasium Zlin, we had the chance to design a music rich task centred around Christmas carols. We were fortunate enough to be given time with two groups of students and so we felt this was an excellent opportunity to try out the same task with different classes and see how it was received by each of them. We had two lessons with each group of students and their task was to write new lyrics in English for a Christmas carol of their choice then perform it as a class.
Lesson One
We started the first lesson with a short talk about Christmas in Scotland, as the students had expressed an interest in hearing about traditions in our home country - we asked them to fill out small forms prior to the lesson to gather information about how they like to learn, what they would like to do in the lessons, their favourite Christmas carols etc to help us tailor the lessons for the students taking part. We then asked the students to tell us a little about Christmas celebrations in the Czech Republic and we showed a slideshow of typical Christmas images and had Christmas music playing in the background throughout the discussion.
After that we explained the task to the class and gave them a handout, then introduced them to three popular English Christmas carols of contrasting styles. The first was the old carol ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’, the second a newer carol ‘Walking In A Winter Wonderland’ and the third was the modern Christmas song ‘Merry Xmas (War Is Over)’ by John Lennon. We played the beginning of each carol a few times in order for the students to familiarise themselves with the tune, then everybody sang them together. They were asked to vote as a class on their favourite of the three and were told that this would be the carol for which they would write new lyrics. Group 1 chose ‘We Wish You A Merry Christmas’ and Group 2 chose ‘Merry Xmas (War Is Over)’.
To end the lesson, we asked the students to think of words they associate with Christmas and drew up a word cloud containing all of their ideas. We made this into a handout to distribute in the second lesson to help them when writing their new lyrics.
Lesson Two
The students were reminded what their chosen carol was and were allowed to listen to it a few more times to make sure they knew the melody. They were given the word cloud from the previous lesson and also the sheet music for their carol. We split them into small groups so that each group could focus on a verse each. The students were told how much time they had for this part of the lesson, during which we walked around making sure everyone knew what they were being asked to do.
Once the new words were ready, we wrote them up on whiteboards at the front of the classroom and allowed the students to practise the music for the carol. The final part of the lesson involved the entire class gathering round to perform their new version of the carol.
As usual we got the students to fill out an evaluation sheet after the lessons.
Links to Personalised Learning
The lessons were personalised in the respect that the students could choose which song they wanted to write new lyrics for and they were also free to say anything they wanted in their composition. This links to the ‘Curriculum Entitlement and Choice’ component of Personalised Learning. Another successful element of the lessons was the fact that they were interdisciplinary - the students were carrying out musical tasks while developing their English skills. One student actually said this aspect of the rich task was their favourite, stating that what they liked most about the lessons was the “connection between English and music”.
Since we also employed a variety of teaching methods throughout the lessons and asked students to fill out forms before the lessons to help us plan the task around their preferences, this rich task links to the ‘Teaching and Learning Strategies’ component as well.
Finally, the students were given an opportunity to practise their English during the lessons and to expand their vocabulary. These skills are useful in everyday life and hence the ‘Strong Partnerships Beyond the Classroom’ component is also present.
Feedback
Group 1
The students from Group 1 rated the lessons between 4/10 and 10/10 with the average working out at 8.3/10.
Some of the things students liked about the lessons were being allowed to say which song they thought was the best and then singing it, that it was an interesting task and also the connection between English and music.
The students also gave feedback on some of the things they didn’t like which included not having enough time for the task and that in the first lesson there was too much talking.
Things that they thought would have improved the lessons were having more varied activities in the first lesson, learning more songs and also better communication.
Group 2
The students from Group 2 rated the lessons between 3/10 and 10/10 with an average score of 8.2/10.
Aspects of the lessons which students enjoyed were talking about Christmas and learning about Christmas in other countries, learning Christmas vocabulary, composing the song then singing it and also the group work element.
Things the students disliked about the lessons were that they had too little time and that they felt there was too much emphasis on talking about their Christmas traditions and not enough singing.
Some students wrote that to improve the lessons their level of English and their communication could have been better.
One of the things which students from both groups wrote down as a negative aspect of the lessons was that the first had too much talking and its activities weren’t varied enough. We designed the lessons trying to take into account the interests and learning styles of all the students in the groups but obviously everyone is different and so while the talking/discussion element of the task worked for some students, it did not suit others. This highlights the difficulty in trying to personalise lessons for each individual student while still having them all working on the same material. However, when taking all of the feedback into consideration, I think that the lessons were a success. The students in both groups were highly motivated and put a lot of effort into the task. To produce a brand new set of lyrics in another language and in a very limited time frame was a great achievement and both ourselves and the teacher were pleased with the end results.
Thank you to Pavla Kovaříková for all her help and to all the students for taking part!